After a ten-month break, JTBC‘s hugely popuar reality game show “Hidden Singer” is returning for its fourth season with singer BoA headlining the first episode.

“We weren’t sure that we could come back this year,” chief producer Cho Seung-wook told press on Thursday. “But thanks to the support of those who waited for Season 4 to come back, we were able to be ready by October.”

The show, on which established singers are pitted against five fan contestants who are confident they can sing like their idols, has been on the air since 2012, spotlighting 37 singers through three seasons. Past featured artists have included big names like Sung Si-kyung, Baek Ji-young, IU, and Park Jin-young. 

“Our theme for this season is that this is ‘where singers become true singers.’ Artists get to meet the fans that support them and emulate their singing. They get energized, to become even better singers,” said Cho. 

According to Cho, the lineup for the fourth season of “Hidden Singer” will include many names that have been on JTBC‘s radar since the show first began. 

“This season has some singers that we’ve been thinking about since Season 1,” he said, noting that their episodes had been pushed back because “we didn‘t have enough contestants, or their voice was particularly hard to emulate.” 

Season 4 headliner BoA was also one of those singers that had been placed on hold.

“We had a number of timing issues, but this year BoA released her 15th anniversary album and held a concert, which created a nice backdrop for making her the first in our Season 4 lineup.”

Cho also said that the preliminary competition for contestants to land one of the five spots on BoA’s episode was one of the fiercest in the show‘s history.

“There are so many women from their teens to their thirties who thought of BoA as a role model in pursuing music, or in practicing their singing,” he said. “She’s the original Hallyu star. You‘d think that as a female singer she’d have more male fans, but BoA has a very large female fan base. We had a lot of applicants, and we found the top five.”

The show has currently finished taping the first two episodes of the season, with the second episode featuring SG Wannabe‘s Kim Jin-ho. Cho said that a future episode will feature the music of late singer Shin Hae-chul, who passed away due to medical malpractice last year.

The fourth season of “Hidden Singer” comes as other countries launch their own version of the show’s format. Thailand has already aired its first season of “Hidden Singer” and received a “good response,” according to Cho. Vietnam is scheduled to begin airing its show in mid-October, and China is slated to start its rendition later this year, or early next year.

The first episode of “Hidden Singer Season 4” starring BoA airs on JTBC on Oct. 3 at 11 p.m.

By Won Ho-jung (hjwon@heraldcorp.com)